Human Infancy and the Recapitulation Theory 97 



3. Notwithstanding the insecurity of the two primary as- 

 sumptions underlying the theory of culture-epochs, the develop- 

 ment of the individual and that of the race have been found by 

 serious students to have much in common. 50 A competent 

 examination of any one of the many applications of the theory of 

 cultural recapitulation is beyond the scope of this paper. They 

 range from religion to mathematics, and call in each case for 

 very special knowledge of the history of the branches of culture 

 in question, as well as for a broad equipment in the psychology 

 of the mental processes implicated. We can deal here with 

 but a few logical considerations. 



It would not be surprising if the theory held that mature men 

 in a given society were required by their inherent nature to 

 follow in some degree the development of the culture that had 

 been evolved by mature minds in the course of history, for this 

 would imply, apart from the differentiating effects of environ- 

 mental influences, only some common mentality among adults 

 in the same species and some common elements in their modes 

 of progression in any given cultural direction. We have already 

 noticed the difference of opinion between the anthropologists 

 and psychologists with reference to this possibility. 



But the theory goes beyond this. It asserts that unlike 

 ontogenetic periods may be compared with respect to their 

 cultural acquisitions. The child's mind is said to rehearse the 

 history of culture, which is essentially the expression of matur- 

 ity. Supposing, then, that a true genetic sequence had been 

 determined in the historical development of a given branch of 

 culture, based upon parallels among the different races of men, 

 is there a possible warrant for the assumption, made in the 

 culture-epochs theory, that a child's progress in this branch of 

 culture may be so accelerated that he can accomplish in his 

 immaturity what adults in the past could with difficulty attain 

 to? The answer to the question could be determined of course 

 only by an appeal to fact, but such acceleration is not impos- 

 sible if certain conditions be assumed. If the underlying or- 

 ganic basis for the historic progression has always been the 

 possession of childhood, and the conditions in civilized societies 



50 See the account and references of Vincent, loc. cit., also Ribot, Evolution of General 

 Ideas, 1899; Branford, A Study of Mathematical Education, 1908; Huey, Psychology 

 of Pedagogy of Reading, 1910, Part II.; Baldwin, Thought and Things, Genetic 

 Logic, 1906. 



